The problem is that all of this data isn't
open. It's Google's. I understand the immense effort required to create maps of this detail, which is why they are protected by copyright (and database rights, a special subsection of that).
However, on the one hand these maps are owned by a single company that has the singular unique infrastructure, on the whole planet, to even begin to attempt to create maps like this, that no other company (not even Apple) could start to try and get close. Google's machine learning and data-crunching abilities have no match, and there won't be a competitor that ever will.
And on the other hand, the only way I can access this data is through an app that wants to track me and spy on me so badly it refuses to even remember my recent search queries if I disable Google's Location History. I mean get this, remembering recent search queries used to be a feature that made people consider a program to be "clever" or "smart".
I can use ALL this machine learning and fuzzy queries, sound alike typo corrections, super smart Google tech and search with vague hints of queries like that restaurant near the thingy or whatever, and it will give me relevant results!
But it refuses to remember my recent queries, a most basic feature that today is just considered basic UX instead of "clever programming", unless I allow it to spy on me.
This is literally the tradeoff it's asking me to make:
Do you want to be able to use the single most advanced and detailed map of the entire planet available to the public with basic User Experience niceties?
Or do you want to keep your privacy and not broadcast your location to a corporation in a foreign country, specifically the one with the biggest, most out-of-control spying agency, that's --just to name one thing why I think the US/NSA and whoever lives there wanting a bite of my privacy can piss right off-- been hacking people in my home country's personal computers and devices, left and right just because anyone who is a sysadmin is considered a "strategic target" even though our countries are "allies" on paper, that apparently doesn't mean shit when attacking citizens' property.
Sorry yeah it looks great, just like with cathedrals. Was a bit shit with some caveats/blood/death for the common people during the time they were built, but in a few hundred years we'll probably look at this with awe and wonder.